Debris Mission

Louisiana: 

• Estimated 26.5 million cubic yards to be removed.
• Approximately 19.7 million cubic yards (74%) have been removed to date.

• 3 prime contractors
• 499 subcontractors – 270 (61%) are small businesses
• $467.5 million total dollars to prime contractors
• $295.8 million total dollars to Louisiana small businesses

Mississippi: 

• Estimated 23 million cubic yards to be removed (6 million remaining to be removed)
• Approximately 17 million cubic yards have been removed.
• 1 prime contractor
• 881 subcontractors - 634 (~72%) are Mississippi small businesses
• $461.4 million total dollars to prime contractors

• $120.5 million total dollars to Mississippi small businesses

For a frame of reference, a cubic yard is roughly the size of a kitchen dish washer.

• You can't understand Katrina without understanding the magnitude of the storm.  This was simply not a repeat of 2004 or even Hurricane Andrew on a slightly larger scale.  This was qualitatively different than any prior hurricane we've had.  In fact, what's really remarkable is, we had three mega-hurricanes in a row -- Katrina, Rita and Wilma. And this trio of storms taxed our capabilities beyond any previous challenge faced by USACE for disaster response/recovery.

• Hurricanes Katrina and Rita left 87,000 square miles of debris in parts of Louisiana, Alabama, Arkansas, Texas, Mississippi and Florida.  Roughly the size of Great Britain; 770,000 households were displaced; 118 million cubic yards of debris were generated -- that's more than the combined debris of 9/11 and Hurricane Andrew; 11 times as many homes were damaged or destroyed as was the case in Hurricane Andrew; twice the amount of debris as in the Florida hurricanes of 2004. The hurricane debris line essentially stretches 500 miles long.

• Despite the massive scope of the clean-up, (March 17th marked the 200th day of the Corps’ recovery operations) the Corps is committed to accomplishing the debris removal mission as quickly and effectively as possible.  While doing this, we are also working to ensure the safety of the public, the contractor workforce and its employees, while also safeguarding the property rights of citizens and meeting all environmental and legal requirements.

• Katrina generated more debris in Mississippi alone than Hurricane Andrew (15 million cubic yards) the previous most destructive hurricane in U.S. History. The final Federal debris removal mission total for Katrina and Rita is estimated to be three times greater than Andrew.

• The combined totals for debris removed to date in Mississippi and Louisiana (~37 million cubic yards) would fill up (to the roof top) the Louisiana Superdome 8 times. The total amount of materials picked up to date would make a two foot wide, three foot high pile of debris that would surpass the circumference of the earth in length.

• The average dump truck can haul about 40 cubic yards of debris. The completed mission will require more than 1 million truck loads. 

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